Active Campaign Wiki

To begin developing an automation in ActiveCampaign, begin with a “trigger.” There are a variety of ways you can activate an automation, consisting of: When a tag is included When a contact registers for a list When a contact sends a type E-commerce and on-site alternatives (offered in the “Pro” plan) When the contact reaches a particular point in another automation.

From there, you can start building the actions in your automation. Some actions that are offered in ActiveCampaign’s automations are: Send an email Inform a staff member Wait conditions If/then conditionals Split traffic for testing Avoid to other parts of the automation Track goals (The contact can avoid to the goal’s location in the automation.) Start or end another automation, or end the present automation Post a webhook Subscribe or unsubscribe the contact to/from lists Update contact information Include and get rid of tags Include a note Lead scoring, SMS and site messages, and Facebook Customized Audience management are all “Pro” features – Active Campaign Wiki.

Contrast with ConvertKit‘s Automations, which are more restricted. On ConvertKit, you can trigger an automation when: The contact sends a form The contact makes a purchase A tag is contributed to the contact A custom field is updated with a particular worth From there, you can produce Conditions, to examine whether the contact has a certain tag or custom field worth.

Active Campaign Wiki

You can also create Occasions, which are a bit like ActiveCampaign’s Objectives, however without the reporting. You can track an Occasion when: A tag is included or eliminated The contact makes a purchase A date happens A customized field is upgraded with a certain value You don’t develop e-mails in ConvertKit’s Automations.

For more on how ActiveCampaign compares to ConvertKit, read my ConvertKit vs ActiveCampaign contrast. The main method I develop my list is through an email course. ActiveCampaign makes it easy for me to construct my email course exactly how I wish to develop it. Numerous online marketers build extremely basic e-mail sequences for their “e-mail courses.” A contact signs up, and after that that contact immediately starts getting lessons.

It was simple to build with ActiveCampaign, but impossible when I was with MailChimp. I do not do that method. My email course is by hand synced with this countdown timer on my site. You have to register by Friday night, and a new course begins each Monday early morning. When I first attempted this approach, I was on MailChimp.

Active Campaign Wiki

Here’s the automation I use to invite new students to my Design Pitfalls course. There’s a couple of things going on here: The automation sends all contacts a “welcome e-mail (Active Campaign Wiki).” The automation verifies that it’s not Friday. If it’s not Friday, the automation waits till it is Friday. At 11am, it sends a “pump up” e-mail to get the students ready for next week’s course, and encourage them to share it with buddies.

The contact will begin getting lessons the following Monday early morning. If it is Friday and after 7pm, the contact missed out on registration for next week’s class. They’ll get the pump up e-mail the following Friday morning, and lessons the Monday after that. It was difficult for me to automate this with MailChimp.

When I run a webinar, I do not desire to send out the very same e-mail to every person on my list. I desire to send them the appropriate email for their level of engagement – Active Campaign Wiki. Active Campaign Wiki. Here’s the automation I use to promote an evergreen webinar: First it confirms that they have not already acquired the product I pitch in the webinar.

Active Campaign Wiki

Then it sends a series of e-mails to get them thinking about the webinar, and to encourage them to sign up. If they sign up, they immediately struck the “Goal” towards completion of the webinar, and the automation ends. If they don’t sign up, they get added to an automation promoting a rebroadcast of the webinar. Active Campaign Wiki.

This enables me to customize my messaging, in other automations, based upon the contact’s engagement with the webinar. Here’s the WebinarJam integration panel: I can include tags based upon whether the contact registered, went to, missed, or based upon the length of time they remained in the webinar. These tags can then trigger automations within ActiveCampaign.

It costs me cash, and it makes it most likely that my e-mails go to spam or Gmail’s promos tab. People who do not open my emails make it harder for other e-mails to get to the individuals who actually want them! The “Pro” strategy of ActiveCampaign has actually lead scoring built in.

Active Campaign Wiki

Here’s an automation I received from ActiveCampaign’s library of automations, which I use to inform which contacts aren’t engaging with my e-mails. When a contact subscribes, this automation adds a “0 days” tag. As time passes, it adds new tags for 7 days, 1 month, 60 days, etc Each time they open an email, a different automation eliminates them from this automation, gets rid of all of those tags, and starts this automation over again.

This automation can be frustrating at first, and this is among those cases where I want ActiveCampaign had a more out-of-the-box service. But, since you can do anything with ActiveCampaign, sometimes you have to build things from scratch. ActiveCampaign has an alternative to delete inactive subscribers, which I don’t advise.

Some customers do not have tracking turned on, so their opens aren’t taped. Others still wish to be subscribed but have been busy. Here’s my reactivation sequence: I send out one e-mail asking if they still wish to be subscribed, and briefly explaining why I keep my email list clean. In one week, I send them another email (if they already clicked the confirmation link in the previous e-mail, they have actually currently been removed from the automation utilizing a separate automation) – Active Campaign Wiki.

Active Campaign Wiki

The automation then unsubscribes them. My e-mails also have a link to a type where they can enter their email address to let me know that they do not have tracking enabled. This form adds a tag that I utilize to filter those contacts out. Active Campaign Wiki. I used to include this tag when they clicked on a link, but when people don’t have tracking on, it makes those links not work so reliably! I just send out a basic “do you still want my emails?” verification.

Active Campaign Wiki

You can also see whether the conclusion rate has increased or decreased, the length of time it considers contacts to reach that goal, and you can browse all contacts to see who did and didn’t reach the objective. ActiveCampaign’s Message Variables is my preferred function. It saves me a load of time and effort, and neither MailChimp nor ConvertKit (update: 9/2020 ConvertKit now has ” bits”) has a comparable function.

Let’s say you have the given name of only some of your contacts, which holds true with my list. I usually don’t require a first name to register to my list, but often I get a first name, such as when somebody buys an item. Would not it be nice to greet your contacts by name, in the events when you have it? You can do this, but it’s troublesome.

I’m likewise filtering for generic terms included by other systems, such as a dash, or “Visitor.” If they have a first name, I say “Hey,” and after that their given name. If they do not, I simply say “Hey there,” (Active Campaign Wiki). By constructing a Message Variable in ActiveCampaign, I can easily alter my greeting according to whether I have the contact’s given name.

Active Campaign Wiki

I created a variable that’s simply %greeting-hey%. If I have the contact’s name, it shows up in the e-mail. If I don’t have the contact’s name, it defaults to “Hey,”. Where Message Variables really conserve me a great deal of time is by enabling me utilize the same automation over and over once again for my webinars, and I can rapidly alter out all of the information.

Here vary for a webinar I run called “Bust Through Creative Blocks.” You can see I have a bunch of different variables here, such as the date and time of the webinar, the rate of the product, deal terms, coupon code, and more. Each time I run a new webinar, I can alter each of these variables to match any schedule modifications or deal changes.

And here it is in an e-mail. This message variable allows me to quickly change out a countdown timer. I did point out earlier that one of the cons of ActiveCampaign is their email editing experience. I switched from MailChimp, and MailChimp takes place to have the finest email editing experience. I truly like to send out basic e-mails.

Active Campaign Wiki

I’ve discovered that very tough to do with ActiveCampaign. For awhile, I was modifying e-mails in ActiveCampaign’s hybrid editor, which is rather clunky. For a long period of time, I utilized ActiveCampaign’s hybrid HTML and WYSIWYG editor, which was activated by a standard design template I produced. The interface for the HTML editor appears like it was pulled from some totally free open-source task. Active Campaign Wiki.

However, adding images is a little a task. You have to select them from a file internet browser. There’s no drag and drop alternative. ActiveCampaign’s HTML e-mail editor needs that you make up completely in HTML. The option to this, if you want to have control over the HTML, is to modify pure HTML, with a preview on the side.

Adding images to ActiveCampaign’s abundant text editor is a cumbersome experience. You require different text boxes for above and below the image. Recently I have begun using ActiveCampaign’s abundant full-screen editor. They have some nice templates, but I still wish to send out the simplest email possible. They do have some plain-looking e-mails, however they have some degree of very little formatting, which you can’t remove – Active Campaign Wiki.

Active Campaign Wiki

But, with some changes, I can make my email pretty standard. I can make it immediately use up the entire window, and I can modify the typography to be somewhat bigger, and have a bit more leading. The most aggravating part of ActiveCampaign’s rich full-screen editor is including images. Picture you have actually just typed out a fantastic e-mail. Active Campaign Wiki.

You can’t simply include an image to a block of text. Rather, you have to produce 2 blocks of text: one for before the image, and one for after the image. If you’ve made any format changes, you’ll have to keep an eye on those to remain consistent. That’s one thing to deal with when you want to include one image, but when you desire to include numerous, it ends up being a big chore.

They even have a standard mage editor where you can crop the image – Active Campaign Wiki. MailChimp’s editor is the finest I’ve seen in all of the e-mail marketing platforms I’ve attempted. You have access to the underlying code, so you can produce a truly plain email, provided you make a basic template initially.

Active Campaign Wiki

MailChimp’s integrated image editor is incredibly effective. You can resize, crop, and include custom-made text to your images. I miss MailChimp’s email-editing experience (Active Campaign Wiki). It would conserve me a little time to have that exact same experience on ActiveCampaign. However the highly-customizable automations I can develop on ActiveCampaign more than offset that prospective time savings.

ConvertKit’s e-mail modifying experience is really plain, however easy to navigate. Their templates are restricted, which is great with me, but their email modifying experience is a little simpler in that you can produce inline images, and you can produce an absolutely plain e-mail, and even edit the underlying HTML. If you wish to make some quick edits to some e-mails in an automation, with ActiveCampaign, it’s troublesome.

I’ll click on an email, and it takes me to the editor for that e-mail. Note that I can’t even Command + Click to open it in another tab. Whether they implied to or not, ActiveCampaign has disabled Command + Click from the automation editor. If I wanted to switch backward and forward between numerous e-mails, I would intuitively be inclined open the very same automation in numerous tabs, then open the particular e-mails from each of those tabs.

Active Campaign Wiki

In the Automations area, there’s a “Handle Messages” area. From here, you can see all of the messages in each of your automations. You can modify each one, or you can Command + Click to open each in a new tab to more easily edit your whole sequence. Active Campaign Wiki. Contrast that with ConvertKit’s Series.

Once again, it would conserve me a lot of time to have ConvertKit’s automation email modifying experience on ActiveCampaign – Active Campaign Wiki. But picking an e-mail marketing platform resembles choosing a partner. ActiveCampaign makes up for it with their Message Variables, more robust automations, and advanced division. Speaking of segmentation, another factor I changed from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign was that MailChimp has actually limited segmentation alternatives.

You can integrate attributes with an AND/OR operator, and you can blend and match those groups of traits with another AND/OR operator. With MailChimp, you can just section by AND/OR, nevertheless MailChimp’s Pro plan permits more advanced segmenting, for an extra $199 a month. In my search for the ideal email marketing platform, I saw many others, a few of which I have actually already pointed out.

Active Campaign Wiki

ConvertKit. If I weren’t on ActiveCampaign, I would most likely be using ConvertKit. Their automations are much simpler to construct, though they aren’t as versatile as ActiveCampaign’s, and their segmentations options aren’t as sophisticated either. They likewise don’t have goal tracking, or Message Variables. MailChimp. You already know that I switched from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign.